In addition, it hasn't rained for more than a few minutes, since mid-May. I know this because my yard flooded on May 12, just as I returned home from my court date for a speeding ticket. On Phil's advice, as he had been busted recently as well and sought advice from bolshy Texans, I had appealed the charge and got a much better deal than if I had just paid the fine, which is a salutary lesson in assertiveness, for anyone facing a similar predicament. After my light-hearted conversation with the handsome prosecutor, who clearly earned his living by charming errant Westlake housewives, I drove back home slowly, not only because one of the conditions was that I behave myself for the next six weeks, but also because it was raining sideways. It was a fantastic, scary Texas storm that overwhelmed the berm at the back of our house. Debris from upstream became caught in our wrought iron fence and the yard flooded less than 30 minutes. A berm, if you were wondering (I had never heard the word until we moved here), is a raised barrier, separating two areas. But in our neighborhood it basically means an arroyo or flood trench.
We call it the Snake Creek, because it looks like a good place for a snake to live, and we wanted Fred to stay out of it, especially the deep bit and he's scared of snakes. So instead of reading or knitting peacefully for the precious remainder of Freddie's preschool morning, I was out in the thunderstorm, up to my shins in water and sludge, trying to unblock the shallow part of Snake Creek -- the space under the fence. It took over an hour, and I only managed it in the end by removing the main cause -- the large rock we'd placed in the berm to stop our old dog, Keira, from digging her way under the fence when she was a puppy.
It also rained the next Thursday, I remember. Another impressive Texas storm. And all of Austin greened up beautifully in the next week. But in June it got hotter, and in July hotter still and there was no more rain.
A month or so ago, I put my faith in Caribbean hurricanes, but they are thin on the ground so far this season. Don dissipated over the Texas coast once he ran into our fabulous high pressure system. And Irene looks to be headed for Florida and the Carolinas.
So basically, we are waiting. Waiting for the planet to move, for the the Jet Stream to move south, which meteorologists predict will happen in two more weeks and end our 100F+ temperatures. We have already beaten the record number of days above 100F, which was 69 back in 1925. Austin's average, we learned while we were still back in England, is 12 days. In 2009 we came ludicrously close to the record, with 68 days but Fall sneaked in by the first week of September and the thermometer stayed at 98 and 99 and somehow we missed the record. Yesterday was the 70th day, so we're well away now.
This a photo of a boat house on Lake Travis, just northwest of Austin. The water is normally up to the trees.
Here are a few observations. Everyone calls it "the oven", which sounds funny but that is exactly how it feels when you step outside. Our a/c has broken down three times this summer -- mercifully the upstairs unit only -- and we have a good repair agency, but it is not nice to wake up at sweating at 3am and worry for 2 more hours how long this will last.
Three friends have threatened to move. "I told David (husband), I am so done with this," my neighbor said firmly. She is from New York and considers this weather "inhuman". Trees are dying all over town. Perfectly healthy deciduous trees are turning brown and losing limbs. And there are towns in west Texas, where they have had little more than 1 inch of rain since last October, that are running out of water completely. Read more about that here.
We are living in Stage 2 water restrictions, which I wrote about back in 2009, which means we can use our built-in sprinkling systems two days a week only, between 7pm and 10am. This is laughable, not only because many people flout the regulations, but also because you are allowed to 'handwater" with a hose when ever you like, and to use a conventional sprinkler -- the kind you can move around -- at anytime. I don't care about the lawn, which is brown in many place despite the sprinklers. We have been working to save our trees, which involves watering the canopy area intensively for and hour or more (on your legal watering days, of course) about every 10 days or so.
As Irene is heading north, my next hope is Tropical Depression Ten. Corpus Christi and Galveston are just going to have to take one for the team.
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